


Rage Against the Dying of the Light

by missmichellebelle



Series: Tropetember [16]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Bipolar Ian, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Therapy, brief mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian still remembers his first visit to therapy, where he expected the chaise lounge for him to lay on and the constant sound of someone scribbling notes. What he’d gotten instead was a regular love seat, and when he’d tried to lay down on it, his therapist had given a startled little laugh and told him that it was, “Quite unnecessary, really.” She never took notes. She never even held a clipboard. She just clasped her hands in her lap and gave Ian her full attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rage Against the Dying of the Light

**Author's Note:**

> So it's October now, and technically Tropetember is over. ~~Except that I kind of fizzled out and died during the second half of the month, and I promised myself that I would have at least 20 of these, so the last five are going to happen SO HELP ME GOD (well, four now, hurray).~~
> 
>  **EDIT:** so it's mid-November now and I wrote no more parts of Tropetember, and while I still plan on writing a lot of AU one-shots (like, so many, it's ridic), I think it's safe to say that Tropetember itself is over. Thank you so much for going on this adventure with me!  <3
> 
> Apparently my muse was at the bottom of six shots of espresso. Who knew.
> 
> I went to see my psychiatrist today, and there was someone else in the waiting room, and that's basically where this idea came from. And then it got kind of dark and fucked up.
> 
> And then milkshakes.
> 
> I think one of my favorite things is when one character can take something that seems so fucked up and convoluted to another and just... Make it simple. Mainly because everyone makes everything more complicated for themselves than it needs to be, makes everything harder, and sometimes you just need to see the world through someone else's eyes and realize... Huh. Maybe it really is that simple.

Ian is early.

He is stupidly, _ridiculously_ early, because he’d been anxious. He’d been sitting around in his hardly-moved-into apartment, unable to focus on unpacking because of his impending appointment, so he’d just… Stopped waiting around and went. It certainly took off the edge that came with the possibility of being late, or getting lost, or anything else that can happen in a new, unfamiliar city.

But now he’s just over an hour early, and has nothing to occupy his twitching hands but his phone, and he can only check his email, or his texts, or play Piano Tiles so many times. Ian hates waiting, but he also knows that if he’d tried to kill time, he’d probably just suffer from some sort of anxiety attack.

The whole thing is really just a lose-lose situation.

He’s considering getting up to look at the sparse array of magazines jutting out of containers on the wall when the door to the waiting room opens—and not the door that leads to the doctors, but the door leading _in_. Years ago, it would have made Ian ashamed and uncomfortable, but now it just makes him curious. It isn’t often that he sees other people during his therapy visits.

It’s a younger guy, who strides into the room in an agitated manner and heads straight for the bank of buttons by the door—hits one like he’s done it a thousand times before, and then turns around. He’s taken two steps towards a chair in the corner when he seems to realize he’s not alone, and Ian’s face goes blank at the murderous glare that’s thrown his way.

Well, okay then.

Ian looks down at his phone and pretends he’s doing something other than cautiously glancing at the other man every few seconds. His whole body is tense, arms crossed, fingers digging into his elbows and teeth biting into his bottom lip, light eyes focused on the door like maybe if he concentrates hard enough, he could move it with his mind.

His eyes might be blue, or maybe grey? Ian can’t really tell from where he’s sitting.

Every glance lasts a little longer, and Ian wonders why the guy is here—and then tries not to. When he’d started seeing a therapist, one of the things he’d worried about the most was people thinking he was a fucking nut-job just because he needed to talk to someone on a weekly basis. It had taken him a long time to get over that stigma, and now here he is, perpetuating it. Maybe this guy just needs someone to talk to. Maybe he’s going through a divorce. Maybe he lost a loved one.

Or maybe he held a knife up against his roommate’s throat after said roommate made an insensitive joke about his sister.

…or maybe that’s just Ian.

The door opens—the doctor’s door, the one that leads to the hallway that branches into several different therapists’ offices—and a tall, willowy looking woman with greying auburn hair twined into a braid and large, silver-framed glasses appears.

“Mickey,” she greets, and Ian’s short-lived waiting room companion stands up. His anger is billowing off him so clearly that it’s practically visible, and Ian wonders how someone so mad can share a name with a lovable cartoon mouse. The therapist holds the door, and then her dark eyes land on Ian in surprise.

“Mr. Gallagher,” she says, her voice reflecting her expression. “My, you’re early. Your appointment isn’t until 11, if I remember correctly.” Her eyebrows furrow as if she might not, and Ian realizes this must be Candace Shephard, his new therapist.

“Didn’t want to get lost,” Ian replies, smiling sheepishly, and she just nods as if she’s filing the information away for later. Ian wouldn’t be surprised.

It takes him a minute to realize that he’s being stared at, and Ian’s eyes flick over to Ms. Shephard’s current patient who seems to be sizing him up. Ian stares back evenly, mouth set into a thin line.

 _Think what you want_ , Ian says through his eyes, and it’s almost like Mickey understands him with the way one of his eyebrows quirks up.

The stare is consuming enough that Ian is surprised when he suddenly has a clipboard full of paperwork in front of him.

“Since you’re here, you might as well get that out of the way,” Ms. Shephard says, smiling at him kindly, and Ian just nods and smiles back as he takes it. When he glances back at the doorway, Mickey is gone, and the therapist follows after him, closing the door behind herself with a soft _click_.

Ian stares at the door for a few moments, the pen that’s now between his fingers tapping wildly against the side of the clipboard as his hands try to work out their nervous energy. He can’t help but think, _What are you in for?_ and then let’s out a small huff of laughter in the quiet room.

It’s therapy, after all. Not prison.

*

Ian’s file is large and intimidating in Ms. Shephard’s hands as she sits in a wing-backed chair and gestures Ian towards a couch across from her. He still remembers his first visit to therapy, where he expected the chaise lounge for him to lay on and the constant sound of someone scribbling notes. What he’d gotten instead was a regular love seat, and when he’d tried to lay down on it, his therapist—her name had been Anna Price, but Ian simply called her _Anna_ —had given a startled little laugh and told him that it was, “Quite unnecessary, really.” She never took notes. She never even held a clipboard. She just clasped her hands in her lap and gave Ian her full attention.

Thinking of her makes Ian’s throat clench—she’d been his therapist for years, but when he’d made the move from Chicago to New York, he couldn’t exactly bring her with him.

But Anna had referred him to Candace Shephard, and Ian trusted Anna as if she was family.

“So, Ian… Is it okay if I call you Ian?” Ms. Shephard asks, and Ian just nods. She smiles. “Good, and you can call me Candace. No sense in making this all formal and uncomfortable.” She waves her hand around dismissively in front of her face, and then opens the folder on her lap, glancing down at it. “Now, your previous therapist, Anna Price?” Her eyes flick up, as if awaiting Ian’s confirmation, so he nods, and she continues. “She sent me notes on everything you’ve been working on with her over the last several years. Which is incredibly helpful, of course, and will let us get into gear much more quickly, but I think it’ll benefit us both if I hear about your journey from you rather than her.”

This time, Candace closes the file completely and sets it on the small side table beside her, before turning to look at Ian. She doesn’t clasp her hands the way Anna did, but she does let them rest in her lap. No clipboard, no pens. No notes.

When Ian breathes out, he feels infinitely more relaxed.

“That sound good to you?” Candace asks, and when Ian simply nods again, she raises her eyebrows expectantly—and Ian realizes he hasn’t said a word since sitting on the couch. He let’s out a little nervous laugh, and wipes his hands on his jeans.

“Uh, yeah, that’s… That’s fine.” Ian chews the inside of his cheek, mind reeling. Where does he even _begin?_

“Therapy involves a certain level of trust, Ian, and I want you to feel that in this room. I want you to trust me, and I want to trust you,” Candace tells him. “And I think that trust will be better established if you can tell me your story, in your own words.” She pauses. “It’s also a, excuse my pun, therapeutic exercise. Sometimes, when we reflect upon the journey we’ve taken, we see how far we’ve come more clearly.”

Ian nods slowly, mulling the words over—he understands, it was just…

“Where do I start?” He asks quietly, and Candace tilts her head and smiles.

“How about with some simple questions to keep tabs on where you are _now_ , and then we’ll go back, okay?” Candace glances at him over the rims of her glasses. She reaches for the folder again, and Ian’s stomach turns a little bit. He’s morbidly curious about what exactly is in it. “You were seeing a Dr. Winston back in Chicago, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Two or three times a month?”

“Sometimes once,” Ian corrects, lacing his fingers together between his knees. “Depending on how I was feeling.” Candace nods, flips a few pages.

“And now you’re seeing a Dr. Kensington here in New York?” Ian nods. “How many times have you been to see him?”

“I’ve been to see _her_ once so far, just to touch base,” Ian clarifies, and Candace nods.

“Are you still taking your medication regularly?”

“Yes.”

“Maintaining a schedule? Getting enough sleep, exercising, and so on?”

“Yes.”

“Well, all right then.” The folder snaps shut once more. “I think that takes care of all the necessary, uncomfortable stuff.” She smiles in a good-humored sort of way, and it makes Ian feel a little more at ease and a lot less like he’s being interrogated. “Now, Ian, why don’t you tell me a story?”

“I still don’t… I don’t know how to _start_.”

“Well… Start wherever you want. You could start now and work backwards, or start at the beginning and move forwards. Start in the middle, if you’d like, or start with the moment that seems the most significant to you. Start wherever you’d like, there’s no wrong answer here.”

Ian stares down at his hands, eyes tracing every line and nook and curve there, and then he swallows and licks his lips.

“When I was 14…”

*

Ian shows up early to his next appointment, too, even though he knows how to get there—knows how long it takes, which trains to take, the whole ordeal. It’s not the anxiety, or his impatience, or anything like that… It’s his curiosity. He can’t help but wonder about the patient Candace sees just before him—Mickey, like the mouse, that’s how Ian remembers it—and for some reason wants to figure him out. Maybe if only for that eyebrow quirk.

For some reason, it had felt like a moment.

Then again, Ian is a lonely soul in a new city. When that girl with the heavy eye make-up sat in the empty seat next to him on the subway, it had felt like a moment, too.

He shows up at 9:45, this time with a book and a coffee, and is surprised to see the subject of his curiosity is already there, eyes flying up to look at Ian when the door opens. They’re blue, Ian decides. Maybe they’re grey, sometimes. Ian wonders when exactly.

Surprise flickers across Mickey’s face for a moment, and then his eyes drop away. He’s got his arms crossed again, and he’s scowling down at the carpet as if it’s personally offended him in someway. It kind of makes Ian smile as he sits down in the same chair he’d taken residence of the week before.

Ian opens his book to a random page, and then stares at the words, the letters bleeding and bending together because he can’t focus on them, mind too preoccupied with the man sitting fifteen feet away from him.

 _Stop thinking about it_ , Ian chides himself, but that doesn’t mean it works.

“Gallagher, right?”

Ian nearly drops his book as his eyes flash up, and Mickey is looking at him with a cold stare.

“Uh, right.” Ian had remembered Mickey’s name, but that doesn’t mean he expected Mickey to remember _his_.

“You in here for voyeurism or some shit?” Mickey’s eyebrows screw together, and Ian’s mimic them in confusion.

“What?”

“Stop fucking looking at me,” Mickey hisses, and Ian blanches—hadn’t even realized he’d been doing it, but apparently Mickey _had_. Ian feels his face heat, knows the blush will run down his neck and over his ears in that stupid way it always does, and he debates with himself for a moment. He could drop his eyes back to his book and actually try to read (or just pretend to until Candace comes to pluck Mickey from the waiting room), or…

“I’m pretty sure voyeurism involves the observed being in some sort of sexual situation,” Ian comments plainly, palms pressed to his knees as he wills his embarrassment back under the layers of his skin. He looks at Mickey and tilts his head to the side in a scrutinizing fashion. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

And for just a second, Mickey seems taken-aback and flustered.

But just for a second.

“Fuck off, firecrotch,” Mickey snaps, and Ian grins easily.

“Whatever you say, Mortimer,” Ian mutters in response, and gets that same startled reaction again. This time, it’s tinged with something that looks like annoyance. It could be anger, though.

“The fuck did you just call me?”

“You know, Mortimer Mouse,” Ian explains, and is met with a blank, unamused stare. “…the rejected name for Mickey Mouse? And then later his dick rival?” Ian blames the fact that he knows all of this on having a brother 14 years younger than him.

“You fucking kidding me right now?” Mickey mutters, looking at Ian like he’s some sort of subspecies of human.

Ian quietly sips his coffee, unsure of what’s going to happen next—he sort of just called Mickey a dick, huh?—when the door opens and Candace is calling Mickey into the back (she seems just as surprised to see Ian again, but doesn’t comment this time).

Looks like he’ll never know now.

*

“How are you adjusting to life in the city, Ian?”

“I mean, it’s a change, but it’s a good change.”

“Has it messed with your routine?”

“A little, but… It’s an adjustment, like you said. So things need adjusting. Not a lot, but enough that it’s taking me some time to get back into the swing of things.”

“Has that caused you any problems emotionally?”

“…no. Not yet.”

“Not yet? Are you expecting it to cause problems?”

“I mean, maybe? I’m not sure. The schedule is supposed to help, right?”

“Right, but that doesn’t mean altering it is going to set you back. If you don’t feel like you’re having a setback, then don’t convince yourself that you are. Now, what about everything else? Your job going okay? You figuring out the transportation?”

“Again, adjustments, but nothing I can’t handle. I grew up riding public transport. New York just has a different map.”

They both laugh, and they move on, and Candace doesn’t bring up why Ian keeps showing up over an hour earlier than he’s supposed to.

Ian is glad. He doesn’t exactly have an answer for her.

*

“You some kind of stalker?” Mickey asks him, and this is how it’s been. Every Monday, Ian shows up fifteen minutes before Mickey’s appointment, and the first time aside, Mickey is always already there.

“No,” Ian responds, simply. It turns out he isn’t the only one longing to figure out the other’s head. Except where Ian quietly observes, Mickey just flat out asks. Asks if Ian is a nymphomaniac, asks Ian if he likes to mutilate children’s toys, asks Ian if lighting fires makes him feel joy inside.

It never hurts Ian’s feelings, because the questions are always sarcastic. Ian can tell that Mickey doesn’t think Ian is any of those things, has done any of those things, but he asks anyway.

He never asks Ian if he’s crazy, and even though Ian _knows_ he isn’t (he isn’t, he isn’t, he isn’t), he’s still thankful. He grips his knees and is so, so thankful.

“Not a serial killer with a thing for guys with dark hair and blue eyes?”

Ian cracks a smile, and then snorts.

“If I was?” Ian glances up from his hands to look Mickey in the eyes, and Mickey scrunches his nose and shrugs, like the idea of Ian being a murderer is no big deal.

Something cold and heavy curls up in Ian’s gut, makes his body seize at the painful chill.

 _You almost were_.

“I could take you,” Mickey says confidently in return, sizing Ian up, and Ian’s smile is tight.

“Sure you could.”

*

“It was a stupid argument,” Ian says quietly, looking at the floor, eyes tracing the patterns he sees in the indents of the carpet but that aren’t actually there. His story has been coming together slowly over each session, puzzle pieces that are selected at random and dropped into empty space, nothing to connect them together aside from the fact that they’re part of the same picture  _somehow_. It’s all random memories, told out of sequence, flowing out of Ian’s mouth as he remembers them and Candace sits there quietly and listens.

“I… I don’t even remember it now, just that it was boiling up. We kept getting angrier and angrier, and… And my hands shook, and everything was just… Red. All I could see, all I could hear, all I could breathe. It was just… Red.” He grips his own hands so tightly that his knuckles turn white. “And then I could hear him, saying my name, whispering it over and over and then it wasn’t whispering, it was… It was louder, and I could see him, could hear him, could… Could see that I had him pressed up against the fucking wall with my fucking pocket knife pushed up against his throat, and he… There were tears in his eyes, and he was so scared. He was pleading, and begging, and so scared, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t even remember how I…”

Ian huffs, breath feeling sharp in his lungs as his hands break apart to drag through his hair, over his face, like maybe he can tug the memory off and leave it behind somehow.

“Breathe, Ian,” Candace says, her voice soft, instructs him through deep, even breaths as his hands shake against his scalp.

“I dropped the knife and I… I ran. I just ran, ran until I couldn’t anymore, and I didn’t even know what I was running from, just knew that I had to run.” He pauses, takes a few more deep breaths. “I was running from me.” He knows that. Figured it out years ago. He’d been running from a monster, but the monster had been inside of him the whole time.

“I could have killed him, and I… I’d never been more terrified of myself.” Ian’s voice feels raw all of a sudden, raw and brittle and it breaks as it comes out of him. “Of what I could turn into.” He feels the pressure of the tears before he feels the wetness. “Of what I could do to the people around me. Of how I could _hurt_ them.”

It was years ago. So long ago now that dragging the memory up had been like gazing at a vague shape through murky water and trying to see every detail, straining his eyes until he had to reach in and touch and hurt himself on all the rough, biting edges. It’s not the only reason he finally crumpled under the weight of his disease, gave in to its existence, and sought after a way to tame the monster inside of him.

No, not the only reason, but the last one on a list far, far too long.

*

It starts on a Saturday morning, and Ian knows it’s happening. It’s waking up with an ice block in his chest, and slowly succumbing to the way it spreads and freezes through his entire body before it’s viciously scooped out, leaving nothing behind.

It’s bad, but it’s not as bad as it was. He gets out of bed, he eats, he follows his routine. But every step and movement and breath is forced. Every inch is a battle. It’s like his body has died around him and he’s somehow still moving it through force of will alone, and it’s exhausting. He collapses into bed every night and is terrified he’ll never get up again.

Terrified that tomorrow it will be worse. That it will be as bad as it used to be. That it doesn’t matter how strong he gets, or how far he’s come—the monster will always win in the end.

*

The little fire that is Ian inside of his hollow shell of a body is what gets him out of bed and to therapy on Monday morning. He wonders what it says about New York that no one even glances at him strangely as he stumbles around like a zombie that can't even manage an interest in brains. Maybe they’re all zombies.

Maybe moving here was the worst fucking decision he ever made.

It’s by habit alone that he’s there early. His schedule, his routine. It’s all fucking laughable now.

If laughter was something he could even remember how to do.

“Someone’s hungover.”

Mickey’s voice travels through six feet of water, distorted and hardly intelligible. Ian’s eyes stay trained on the wall, unfocused. All of his energy goes to keeping his head up.

It’s weird, because being empty feels like nothing, but it also aches somehow. Like that thing that happens to veterans when they lose a limb but can still feel it. Ian imagines this feeling is close to what that’s like. Like his body remembers being full of substance, of life, of… Everything. Of anything. And it aches now because it’s empty.

But even the ache is dull.

Everything is far away, and dull.

“…Ian?”

The touch to his shoulder would be jolting if Ian had the capacity to feel surprise. Or to feel anything, for that matter.

His eyes are suddenly forced to focus as Mickey’s face pops up in front of his, but it doesn’t last long. Too much energy, too much concentration. His gaze drifts sideways and unfocuses again.

Sound rushes past his ears like waves, body rocking and shaking and moving until Candace is there, telling him to breathe, and just talking to him in garbled language that slowly comes through clearer and clearer until Ian can hear her.

It’s suddenly like standing at the bottom of a hole and staring up at the only way out, and there’s Candace. And she could so easily pull him out, but she doesn’t. She stands there and gives him instructions, and it turns out Ian had the tools to build himself a ladder the whole time.

He just needed a little help finding them.

*

When Ian leaves Candace’s office, his fire is bigger, and brighter, and the ache that runs through him is more from the sudden return of feeling and actually fucking giving a shit than it is, well, the lack of those things. Breathing still kind of sucks, like his lungs have collapsed even though the most strenuous thing he’s done all day is _get_ to therapy.

People don’t really talk about mental disorders, but when they do, it’s always about the mental stuff. Obviously. It makes sense. But no one ever talks about the physical effects of them. The extreme ones, maybe, the things that disorders like depression and bipolar can drive someone to do, but never just how they _feel_.

Which is like shit. A different kind of a shit every fucking time, but shit nonetheless.

Ian’s fingers twitch for a cigarette even though he quit years ago. Nicotine doesn’t really mix well with mood stabilizers, or the healthy lifestyle he’s supposed to be living.

He rubs his shoulder, his chest, thinks about the coffee shop down on the corner and how good caffeine sounds suddenly, and he’s distracted enough that he almost walks right past where Mickey is sitting on one of the random benches in the lobby of the building.

Almost.

“Mickey?” He asks in confusion, and blue eyes flick up to look at him, run over him like he’s checking for… Ian’s not sure. But it’s not the sexual kind of eye flicker. It’s something else.

Mickey doesn’t say anything at first, just gives a jilted wave, his knee bouncing up and down, and Ian blinks slowly at him. He might be operating again, but he’s still only at like… 30%. Maybe 35.

It’s quiet, and Ian debates just leaving, when Mickey runs a hand over his face and casts his eyes up at Ian again.

“You cool, Red?”

And it strikes Ian that… Mickey was worried about him. Is worried about him? One of those. Enough that he’s asking if Ian’s all right.

Ian glances away, because realizing that also means accepting the fact that Mickey had seem him practically catatonic.

 _I’m not crazy_ , he tells himself, and closes his eyes. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not.

“Yeah.” The whisper comes out harsh, and Ian swallows half of it back down, and then it’s quiet as Mickey stands up and presses at his jeans like there are creases there.

“You hungry?” Mickey asks, and Ian turns to look at him, confused.

“Um.”

“Diner three blocks over. Best milkshakes in New York,” Mickey promises, and Ian’s mouth twitches at the corner. He’s still a little far from an actual smile.

“Yeah, okay.”

*

Ian hasn’t had that many milkshakes in New York, so he can’t really confirm that they’re the _best_ , but… They are pretty fucking good. He’s not hungry, so that’s all he gets. He knows he should eat something, that he’s been picking at food all weekend and that his body needs it, but he hasn’t quite remembered his stomach yet. He’s sure in a few hours, he’ll be starving, but for now he settles on a milkshake.

The walk over had been quiet, and now it’s even quieter somehow, despite the fact that they’re in a diner that is far from deserted. Ian has no idea why he’s there, not really. It’s not like him and Mickey hang out. They’re… Ian’s not even sure. They both have the same therapist. Ian is kind of creepily obsessed with him in his own quiet way.

Getting milkshakes at a diner is not something they do.

“It’s court mandated,” Mickey says out of nowhere, and Ian nearly sucks his straw straight down his throat. Mickey watches him with an amused lilt to his lips as Ian sputters and coughs, and then waits until he’s calmed down before saying anything else. He picks at the peeling laminate of the table. “Apparently attacking your asshole of a dad and nearly killing him, even when it is self defense, is still fucking punishable by law. But I also apparently got daddy issues, and anger issues, and whatever the fuck else that means I have to see a shrink every week until the court deems me mentally fit.” Mickey stirs the straw around in his milkshake. “Better than prison.”

It takes Ian a few moments to register exactly what’s happening. That the mystery that is Mickey Milkovich has just been willingly unwound in front of him, given to him like a gift that he wanted but would never have the guts to ask for. And now Mickey is staring at him, waiting—for Ian to judge him? for Ian to say something?

And then Ian realizes it’s a trade. His mouth goes dry.

“So you’re not crazy,” Ian surmises quietly, tongue too big in his mouth. _Like me_.

 _I’m not_ , he insists immediately, fighting the urge to screw his eyes shut so he can fight the demons inside himself.

Mickey snorts.

“Depends on who you’re asking,” Mickey replies, and Ian chews the inside of his cheek.

“I’m bipolar,” he says in a rush, and Mickey pauses mid-loud ass slurp of his milkshake. “I’m—“

“You’re not crazy,” Mickey finishes plainly, and then sips his milkshake again. Ian stares at him, dumbfounded, and Mickey glares at him. “The fuck are you looking at me like that for?”

“I… I just…” Hadn’t Mickey been there? Hadn’t he seen what Ian was like? He doesn’t know how bad it can get, how bad it’s been, the things Ian has _done_.

“Look. I got “daddy issues”—“ Mickey does the finger quotes and everything, “—and you’re bipolar. It’s not like you cut off people’s toes and keep them in a fucking jar or some shit.”

“ _What?_ ” Ian’s eyes grow wide.

“I’m just saying, that would be some fucking crazy shit. You’re not like the next Hannibal Lector, right?”

Ian’s mouth parts incredulously, but no words are coming out.

“…right?”

“I— _no_ , that’s so fucked up.” And Ian’s lips pull and morph and it feels so fucking strange to smile after days without even remembering what a smile _was_ , much less being able to form one.

“So.” Mickey does this gesture with his hand. “Not crazy.”

Like it’s that simple.

Like just because Ian doesn’t eat human skin and doesn’t collect body parts and doesn’t have a serial killer profile means he’s not crazy.

Ian watches Mickey flag down the waitress and order fries, and then quirks his eyebrow at Ian, as if daring him to order something, and Ian thinks that maybe he can eat, after all.

And that maybe it really is that simple.

**Author's Note:**

> [Read, Reblog, & Like on Tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/98959360510/rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light)


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